if its always struck you as one of the most profoundly existential films in cinema, explain why.
Yeah, I considered articulating my thoughts further but hesitated because I’d be embarrassed if no one else saw where I was coming from. Rather, I was hoping people would be coming out of the woodwork to say they felt the same way. Also, I don’t know how many people would be very enthusiastic about reading some college student’s pseudo-intellectual babble about a metaphor no one else sees.
But if you’ve seen the film and are genuinely curious…?
“Also, I don’t know how many people would be very enthusiastic about reading some college student’s pseudo-intellectual babble about a metaphor no one else sees.”
The whole point of the internet is to tell someone your opinion… whether they want to hear it or not. This site is about learning, and growing and seeing things in a new perspective. It’s about meeting people with the same interests you have and seeing a film in a new light you may not have considered before simply because you may have never had a person another to talk to about the film. I know there have been numerous threads on this site that have expanded my knowledge on films (For Example).
If you have an insightful opinion on the film then no one will mock it and if they do they’re not really worth listening to anyway.
It’s just a little easier to discuss these sorts of things if the OP lets us know where they’re coming from, you know? I for one am very interested in hearing your thoughts.
I appreciate your point and curiosity very much, and I’ll explain what I meant if you’ll give me a minute. However I still can’t help but feel that posting an opinion that no one is going to read, for whatever reason, feels rather tragic. Shouting into the abyss, as it were.
You might find something in Harry’s dialog with Holly:
01:17:02,950 —> 01:17:05,411
You wouldn’t do anything. What do you want me to do?
Be reasonable.
Do you expect me to give myself up?
It’s a far better thing that I do…with the old limelight
than follow the curtain…
No. You and I aren’t heroes. The world doesn’t make any heroes…
I’ve got to be so careful. I’m only safe in the Russian zone. I’m
only safe as long as they can use me.
Don’t try to be a policeman, old man. Old man, you never should have gone to the police, you know.
You ought to leave this thing alone.
01:17:53,672 —> 01:17:56,466
Holly asks:Have you ever seen any of your victims?
01:17:56,550 —> 01:17:59,970
You know, I never feel comfortable
on these sort of things.
Victims?Don’t be melodramatic.
Tell me.
Would you really feel any pity if one
of those dots stopped moving forever?
If I offered you £20,000for every dot that stopped,
would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money?
Or would you calculate how manydots you could afford to spend?
Free of income tax, old man.Free of income tax…
the only way you can save money nowadays.
959
01:19:19,181 —> 01:19:22,643
Holly, what fools we are talking to each other this way,
as though I’d do anything to you or you to me.
You’re just a little mixed-up about things in general.
Nobody thinks in terms of human beings.
Governments don’t. Why should we?
They talk about the people and the proletariat. I talk
about the suckers and the mugs. It’s the same thing. They have their
five-year plans, and so have I. I still do believe in God,
old man. I believe in God and mercy and all that. But the dead are happier dead.They don’t miss much here,poor devils.
What do you believe in?
I wish I’d asked you to bring me some of these tablets from home.
Holly, I’d like to cut you in, old man.
There’s nobody left in Vienna I can really trust, and we’ve
always done everything together.
When you make up your mind, send me a message.
I’ll meet you anyplace, anytime.
And when we do meet, old man, it’s you I want to see, not the police.
Remember that, won’t you?
And don’t be so gloomy! After all, it’s not that awful.
Remember what the fella said:
In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare,terror, murder, bloodshed. But they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.
In Switzerland,they had brotherly love.They had 500 years of democracy
and peace, and what did that produce?
The cuckoo clock.
So long, Holly.
To start at the beginning…
I think it is important to first consider the film’s context, and in my opinion The Third Man is quintessentially a postwar film. Being as that the war signified, for many, the death of God, I thought it a profound metaphor for a Nietzsche flavored existential crisis, the ruins of Vienna perhaps being the rubble of one’s moral compass or the aftermath of the collapse of one’s guiding principles. As both Nietzsche and Descartes admonish against too eagerly tearing down one’s beliefs with out preparing some cartesian structure to inhabit in the interum, what The Third Man provides is a visual manifestation of the effects of the Death of God. Vienna, then, divided up amongst the four powers, could be perceived as the resulting fractured or fragmented reality, and the four powers each representing different systems of belief that might utilize to rebuild, and then there are the outsiders, the black marketeers represented by Lime. Doesn’t his cuckoo clock speech just smack of the Uber Mensch? And then there is Holly, who in my opinion was portrayed as rather impotent and who, in the end, gained nothing. Perhaps then, Holly is the avatar of Man, who from the very beginning was helplessly shuffled along by forces greater then he, merely reacting, never decisively acting until the very end. And do you remember what he was asked to lecture on? It was “Crisis of Faith”.
Anyway, that’s just how I’ve been reading into the movie. I’ve also had inklings as to others, but I’m curious what you think.
sorry, double post
Oh man! you changed your id…
The Cuckoo clock speech seems out-of-place to me, besides being historically inaccurate.
This is story about a guy who doesn’t exist in terms of how everyone else does. He is a user – he is not a dot – and he is useful.
“the third man” is a classic of film noir, and you can certainly place a multitude of existential readings on classic films noir in general.
the most interesting connection you noted is the “crisis of faith” lecture. thats certainly worth exploring in more detail, as a scene and a reference point.
>>I don’t know how many people would be very enthusiastic about reading some college student’s pseudo-intellectual babble about a metaphor no one else sees<<
pseudo-intellectual babble is a prerequisite here at The Auteurs. Welcome aboard!
Haha yeah, sorry if the name change threw you off. I appreciate that you cared enough to sort in out though.
And yeah, the cuckoo clock speech, while famous, is inaccurate. Still though, I think we can appreciate his point.
When you said “this is a story about a guy”, did you mean Lime or Holly Martins? If you were referring to Lime I’m curious as to how you feel that he was useful. I got the impression that the scene in the hospital with the sick children was meant to impress upon the viewer that Lime did such harm that he needed to be apprehended and prosecuted, that his outlook does not justify or excuse his actions, and perhaps that is the significance of the scene where his fingers are shown struggling with the sewer grate, that is, a visual metaphor for his failure to actually transcend.
But if it was Holly you were referring to, I’d argue that the first scene in the hotel lobby seemed to indicate that Holly was meant to seem as a leaf caught helplessly in the wind: Calloway takes him to the military hotel, then a random guy asks him to lecture thus enabling him to stay in Vienna, and then the Baron summons him. Its as if life happens to or at him, rather then his being a potent agent or force in the world. And then when he flees from the child, and later still, when his love interest repeatedly chastises him and ultimately rejects him, I feel all this points to a director’s intention to emphasize Holly’s being pathetic. However, this is why the final scene between Holly and Lime is so poignant, because Holly symbolically took the gun from the dieing man and with it, took matters into his own hands, for the first time in the film. And the shot echoes across the labyrinthine tunnels, across the convolutions of philosophy and life and the universe.
Ultimately it seems to me that Lime was rising to the place of Uber Mensch, but Man will ultimately betray him and gun him down in the name of civilization, and it will be a thankless job. Man will not get the girl for his action, and he will always feel sort of shitty about what he did. This seems to me what Graham Greene may have been trying to say.
Granted, I’m clearly projecting something on to the film, but I think that is indicative of some motive on the part of Carol Reed to provoke such a reaction.
and yeah, I think that his “Crisis of Faith” lecture is the most literal manifestation of this motive. And if you go on to consider the works of literature he is asked to speak on, such as Ulysses by James Joyce, one finds Carol Reed overtly directing the spectator to consider the postmodern.
Haha thanks Strawdawg. I was so excited to discover the Auteurs, I was hoping I’d finally found a place where someone might give a crap about my pseudo-intellectual babble and respond in kind. I feel like a young Bazin wandering into the cinemateque, I wonder who it is that will be my Godard and Truffaut and how long before I meet them, and then how long before we change the world. Its so exciting!
Haha yeah, sorry if the name change threw you off
Yeah it did, but fortunately one has 30 minutes to edit a post
curious as to how you feel that he was useful.
Lime says this: I’ve got to be so careful. I’m only safe in the Russian zone. I’m
only safe as long as they can use me.
That is how he exists: he is useful.
Carol Reed overtly directing the spectator to consider the postmodern.
Maybe that was why the film was poorly received by audiences !
Holly symbolically took the gun from the dieing man and with it, took matters into his own hands, for the first time in the film.
I don’t see Holly as ineffectual – he is someone who will act in a moral manner, he can act on behalf of someone or an idea. He is actually trying to find the truth about Lime. I think the ‘crisis of faith’ might be Holly’s loyalty to Lime. The dialog at the wheel is where two possible existences collide. Lime can’t understand why Holly wont trust him.
Lime is a moral relativist: I still do believe in God, old man. I believe in God and mercy and all that. But the dead are happier dead. They don’t miss much here, poor devils.
Lime turns out to be a rat – he can act on behalf of himself.
he can only act on behalf of himself.
Hmmm that’s interesting, I’d mostly dismissed that bit about the Russians as merely plot so I’ll have to think about it. But one thought that springs to mind is that in the post war era, being useful to the Russians had a certain connotation to it, and probably a negative one, like he’s in the devil’s pocket or something. At any rate it certainly raises the question of how, or in what manner was he useful to the Russians, and I can’t help but think that whatever it was, it probably couldn’t have been good for the US or Britain. I also can’t help but sort of feel that while the line seems to imply that he may have been functional, the rest of the film doesn’t seem to really try to emphasize that.
Its interesting that you don’t agree about Holly being ineffectual. I was really getting the sense that he was just getting batted around, and the way you phrase it: “will act” I think kind of implies a deterministic dynamic that I’m talking about. While he may act, he never really seemed free to me. I just got the general sense that the film made an effort to humble him as a protagonist before the eyes of the audience. The way he likens himself to one of his pulp-fiction characters betrays, I think, a certain naivety.
I think you’re definitely right about the notion of the two existences colliding though, and I liked your other points too. I think that my analysis is definitely still underdeveloped, I’ll think about it some more. But in the mean time, I wonder if you could site examples from the film’s form to support your idea (perhaps the way the camera treats Holly versus Lime, or maybe in some dialectic formed by two scenes)?
“Maybe that was why the film was poorly received by audiences !”
@Robert: Was it? I could have sworn it won a golden palm, an oscar, a BAFTA, and was popular enough to lead to the creation of a spin-off radio and television show. Unless you were being sarcastic and it flew by me.
@Bruce popular enough to lead to the creation of a spin-off radio and television
Just kidding – I was referring to the below:
@Sleeping Under the …one finds Carol Reed overtly directing the spectator to consider the postmodern.
there was no post-modernism in 1949, unless you meant getting an audience to consider the future after modernism – the answer is no that is way beyond the audience and the film
We’re looking at this for existentialism:
Kierkegaard: the individual solely has the responsibilities of giving one’s own life meaning
Look at the relationship between the two men derive what they represent:
Lime:
You’re just a little mixed-up about things in general. Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don’t. Why should we? They talk about the people and the proletariat. I talk about the suckers and the mugs. It’s the same thing. They have their five-year plans, and so have I. I still do believe in God,
old man. I believe in God and mercy and all that. But the dead are happier dead. They don’t miss much here, poor devils.
What do you believe in?
Holly: look up what Holly’s answer is
Holly and Harry are not that far apart – I don’t think Greene makes Lime the Über anything b/c Lime believes in a higher power. Holly’s answer is important to understand who Holly is an what he represents.
Lime is useful – doesn’t matter of it is Russians, Americans whomever
Is Holly useful?
I think Greene is asking: what gives meaning to an individual’s existence?
God? usefulness? loyalty?
And also, as you have considered: Will Holly do bad to create a greater good?
The answer isn’t as clear cut as you are trying to make it out to be.
Maybe the answer is: an individual can find meaning in the greater good
How would that play right after the “greatest generation” had made the ultimate sacrifice?
The “average Joe” isn’t the wimp some people think he is…….
Lime says this: I’ve got to be so careful. I’m only safe in the Russian zone. I’m
only safe as long as they can use me.
That is how he exists: he is useful.
The corollary is the first episode of Survivor, eh?
Isn’t that how the guy won? He made himself useful?
I have several comments on the above discussion:
1. Remember that “existentialism” had religious adherents, dating back at least to Kierkegaard (and some say earlier). The postwar religious existentialists included Gabriel Marcel, Teilard de Chardin, Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Martin Buber, and Karl Jaspers (to the extent that he believed in Transcendence, albeit not a personal God), among others. (You can tell that my undergraduate major was Philosophy, no?)
2. I mention the above because HENRY Graham Greene, the author, was a devout Catholic (and lifelong adulterer). Therefore, the moral universe of THE THIRD MAN should be considered with that in mind, although Reed may have tweaked that moral world somewhat in filming. But, in any case, Lime conveys Greene’s dichotomy (he suffered from bipolar disorder and attempted suicide several times in his youth, according to his autobiography) in that he is romantic yet cynical; a moral relativist, who believes in God; a “salon communist,” who disrespects the proletariat (“mugs and suckers”); ostensibly civilized on the outside, yet running an evil operation. He is certainly self-aggrandizing, which fit Welles’s image perfectly.
2. Sleeping Under the Tsars seems to be addressing the Nietszchean “God is dead” wing, but remember that Nietzsche did not believe in an actual God who first existed and then died in a literal sense. The expression was his way of saying that the “God” of the times (religion and other such spirituality) is no longer a viable source of any received wisdom. The concept really “made headlines” when “God Is Dead” appeared on the cover of TIME magazine in 1966, many years after THE THIRD MAN.
3. There are certainly existential motifs in the film, as there are in many film noir examples, as Bobby Wise mentions: lonely “heroes” and anti-heroes; postwar disillusionment, cynicism, and anxiety; fear of the Bomb; nihilism. Some of these themes come out in the text or subtext of the movie’s dialogue.
4. But the cinematic style of THE THIRD MAN also contributes to the existentialism: low-key lighting, heavy shadows, dark streets, the underground sewer (Nietzsche said “You must go under”), cantered “Dutch-tilt” camera angles, etc. all convey a disjointedness and despair common in many postwar movies. Even the Ferris wheel scene, famous for its dialogue (and Welles’s delivery of the lines), suggests a theme in that the wheel goes around pointlessly, with no destination. It’s an apt metaphor for the situation in Vienna.
5. The famous final shot also suggests that human beings are ultimately alone in the universe as Anna walks right past Holly, completely ignoring his “Being-in-the-World.” It’s a long road leading to a vanishing point and the temporal aspects of the shot add anticipation that the two characters might connect (only to have Holly’s hopes dashed). The falling leaves (apparently provided by crew members on ladders) seem like tears of despair and the zither music acts in mocking counterpoint to the situation, a mittel-European commentary on Holly’s American naivete.
6. Finally, I agree with Robert W. that the postmodernist turn in the arts didn’t happen until much later (1960s architecture, literature, painting, etc.), although I have had to debate this point with many people who insist that James Joyce and T. S. Eliot were precursors to or actual postmodernists. It depends on one’s definition of the term. Whether ULYSSES is an example of high modernism or postmodernism, however, doesn’t much matter in the film. Holly doesn’t seem to be familiar with Joyce’s work, preferring the traditionalist, Zane Grey. (His favorite painter was probably Norman Rockwell!)
I hope to contribute some more as this pseudo-intellectual discussion proceeds.
5. The famous final shot also suggests that human beings are ultimately alone in the universe as Anna walks right past Holly, completely ignoring his “Being-in-the-World.”
Yes, something Reed added (she takes his arm in the novella) along with the anti-Americanism.It’s not pseudo-intellectual discussion, it is pseudo-intellectual babble
Frank you’re like the cavalry, the rest of us are just trying to hold down the fort and get the best grade we can on this paper.
@Robert W Peabody III: True there was no post modernism with a capital P, but even the mere invocation Modernism (and note Holly’s inability to respond) could be construed as even more appropriate or relevant to my analysis.
And I think that selection from Lime’s dialogue betrays more of a Machiavellian attitude than anything else, Nietzsche’s uber mensch isn’t necessarily an atheist, but merely he who rises in the absence of God and transcends the inhibitions that oft follow faith. But Lime isn’t inhibited, he characteristically moves between the zones with ease, he transcends the barriers that Holly is visually hung up on through out the film, moving between liminal spaces like a veritable Dionysus. I remain undecided.
Regarding the rest of your remark, I’ll have to think about it some more. Some of it I agree, some of it I not sure on yet. I’ll get back to you. At any rate, our discussion has been invaluable to my paper, thank you.
@Doinel: But the uber mensch is inherently useful, in fact that was the point of greatest personal contention regarding my analysis of the film – that the film seemed to strive to emphasize unambiguity on Lime’s part. But if you’re right that he’s useful, then all the better. But I get the sense that you’re arguing that his usefulness is what enables his existence, then I don’t know, I’m not sure how Nietzsche would feel about that to be honest.
@Frank P. Tomasulo: I think you said many interesting and wonderful things and wanted to thank you for your input, particularly your break-down of the final scene which is exactly how I felt about it and more and is so in accord with my general gut feeling about the film as a whole. I’ll have more to say on your other points later. But yes, the death of God to which I was referring was indeed the Nietzscheian, with all the characteristics which you applied to it taken into account.
Isn’t Anna the centre of this existentialist conundrum?
Anna is in love with Lime and knows he is still alive but is resigned to the fact that she will never see him again. She also knows that utlimately she will be deported, yet accepts that she must struggle to survive as she had done throughout the war and post war years. She is alone. But she has always been alone. Both Lime and Martns have used her, for their own ends. But then in post war Vienna, if not in much of post war Europe, it was a case of people reassessing their beliefs, not only in relation to God, but themselves and each other. The Third Man reflects this post war dystopia, and Anna plays a pivotal existentialist role around which Martins, Lime and Calloway revolve. All attempting to make sense in their own way of the chaos of a post-war city divided politically, culturally and perhaps even morally.
Anyway, the movie is being shown for two nights at my local cinema in two weeks, so I shall watch it again but maybe from a more philosophical perspective.
ive always thought the line between modernism and postmodernism is awfully thin. while i generally agree that it began sometime after the 60s, i also agree that plenty of people can be considered precursors to postmodernism. whether or not they were actual postmodernists, well, i dont know if thats worth debating. i doubt many artists were running around calling themselves “modernists” or “postmodernists” anyway. these are theoretical critical terms for the most part.
as far as “the third man”, i wouldnt call it postmodern OR modern. id rather call it post-classical, like i would all film noir. though not to say it didnt have some modernist elements. it seems like almost every grouping can have some precursors within it anyway. categories are rarely perfectly rigid.
i think this is one of the most fascinating threads on this site… i agree with most of the comments – the third man is beyond doubt a superb example of existentialism in cinema… one could almost argue about the same being true for majority of film noir. I remember a quote from Camus’ A Happy Death: (to paraphrase) The fate of man lies not IN him but AROUND him. Could anything be truer to this than The Third Man?
@Abel Whittle: Anna plays a pivotal existentialist role around which Martins, Lime and Calloway revolve
@Peabody What do you believe in?
Holly: look up what Holly’s answer is…..Holly and Harry are not that far apart ………..Holly’s answer is important to understand who Holly is and what he represents.
Anna is Holly’s answer and the object that is the nexus of Holly and Harry’s, as Abel called it, existentialist conundrum
Sleeping Under the Tsars
This film has always struck me as one of the most profoundly existential films in cinema, but now that I’m writing a paper on it for class, turns out I can’t really find anything on this subject in the vast reaches of the internet (except apparently some professor at UC Berkeley includes The Third Man on his syllabus for his class on existentialism). So let me know your thoughts.
Anyway, this is my first post and I thought it would be a fun discussion.